I have played a few more games of Tanto Cuore since my initial foray into the tutorial and I think that I’m starting to get the hang of things.

The trick seems to be to get 4 “love” built up as quickly as possible, at which point you can buy Genevieve Daubigny, a maid who gives you one more love, one more card draw, and – most importantly – one more turn every time she’s played. I have built some truly epic Genevieve chains – once you get one into your deck, it’s very easy to get a second and third and so on. The only nod to balance with Genevieve is that she doesn’t count towards your ending score.

Speaking of scores, which is a pretty awkward segue I admit, I was puzzled for a while by not being able to see the scores of the other players until the end of the match. I eventually figured it out, however – pretty much any player can make the end of match condition happen after about turn 15, so being able to see everyone else’s score would eliminate the need to hesitate before actually pushing the button on this- you need to hold off until you’re pretty sure you have the upper hand.

That was not an intentional card game pun.

Even though I’m having fun with it, I have to admit that it has one foot firmly planted on the bad side of the creepy line. There is a game mechanic described as “chambermaiding”, which essentially removes a card from active play and puts it into a stack from which it only contributes points to your eventual score.

This is not the creepy bit.

The creepy bit is that it comes with a sound effect of a door being closed and locked, and I can’t help but find this just a little disturbing.

Anyway, I will close this post with evidence of my stature as King Of Maids, a position that I suspect will rapidly evaporate should I ever have the temerity to try playing the game on “Normal” difficulty as opposed to easy.